Cannot install the integrated audio AC97′ hardware from a Asus P4S333 or P4S533 under Windows Vista

System Requirements:

  • Windows Vista SP1
  • Windows Server 2008

The Problem:

So, you get fed-up of trying to get PCI sound cards working under Vista and opted for the integrated sound CPU clogging solution?! I don’t blame you.

The P4S333 may be old kit, but it’s a solid motherboard, very much Vista capable with the right upper end P4 and enough RAM, particularly if you flashed the P4S333 with the P4S533’s BIOS to make use of the 533 MHz FSB. The difficulty we have is however in that the C-Media CMI8738 AC97′ chip that the board uses cannot be matched to any of Windows Updates hardware ID’s and Asus, naturally, do not offer a Vista driver.

More Information:

Thankfully, C-Media do provide generic drivers, and there is a January 2009 driver release for the CMI8738 as of writing. The driver does work once you get it out of the RAR file, however:

  1. The driver does not have the necessary hardware ID to install automatically against the customised chip on the P4S333 / P4S533
  2. The driver is not digitally signed

Despite that, I’ve not seen any problems with it, and despite the CPU connotations, it got rid of irritating buzzing that the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 was causing with the useless Vista driver set.

The Fix

Very simply, you need to manually install the driver.

  1. Download the latest CMI8738 driver from C-Media (http://www.cmedia.com.tw/). As of writing the driver version was 8.17.33 and it worked a treat
  2. Deflate the RAR into the file system
  3. Open the Control Panel
  4. Open the Device Manager
  5. Find the uninstalled multimedia device in the Other Devices section, right click, Update Driver Software
  6. Click Browse my computer for driver software
  7. Click let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
  8. Hit the have disk button
  9. Browse to the path that you inflated the RAR file to, for example if you inflated the RAR file to c:\temp\ you want to browse to the following location:
    c:\temp\PCI-8738-090109-8.17.33(Vista3264-RC-01)\SoftwareDriver\driverNote that if the driver version you are using is newer, then the version in the file name will clearly be different. Ultimately however you are looking to point to the SoftwareDriver\driver folder (there are several INF’s and some CAT files in here)
  10. In the manufacturer list from the available select:
    C-Media
  11. From the Model list select:
    C-Media PCI Audio Device
  12. Click Next
  13. Windows will notify you that the driver has not been digitally signed. You’re going to have to tough this one out I’m afraid and install it.
  14. At that point the audio should just start working.